Deloitte rolls out career customisation - Pilot scheme allows staff to ‘dial up or down’

Deloitte has introduced a form of flexible career management that allows staff to “dial up” or “dial down” their professional life to suit their needs, according to Sarah Jepson, talent adviser, human capital consulting, at the firm.
The “mass career customisation” initiative has been piloted in the US by the professional services firm for a year, and will be particularly important for retaining and engaging staff as the economy recovers, said Jepson, speaking at the StepStone Summit in London.
“It’s based on an idea that an individual has times when they can dial up or dial down and take time out depending on their individual priorities. It’s an approach to career management that allows you to have that flexibility,” said Jepson.
Dialling down could take the form of career breaks or adopting more flexible hours, whereas dialling up could mean taking on an additional workload or moving to a different location, explained Jepson. About 10 per cent of eligible employees in the US had chosen to do one or the other, she added.
The pilot has resulted in increased employee satisfaction and has attracted new people into Deloitte, said Jepson. The firm is planning to roll out career customisation to all of its 42,000 US employees by May 2010 and is now starting to pilot the programme in Europe, she said.
Both dialling up and dialling down are monitored against specific criteria, explained Jepson. “These are whether people want to be fixed in a location, whether they want to work part time, and whether they are happy to stay at a certain grade or stretch themselves,” she said.
Jepson added that Deloitte wanted to engage employees through the initiative. “It’s about recognising that people have different values and expectations and alternative talent pools. It’s about attracting mothers and flexible workers. We customise products so why not customise careers and how organisations respond to individuals?” she asked.

What your boss expects HR to know about business

If you don’t know what “free cash flow” means, maybe you should – if you want to get ahead in your organization.
What if someone told you he had a key piece of knowledge that would give you an edge on most of the other managers in your company? You’d probably jump at it, right?
Well, consider that business owners and CEOs routinely expect their managers and supervisors to have an understanding of the basics of business, especially money and finances. A survey by the Harvard Business Review shows that owners’ expectation might be too high.
Asked to take a basic financial-literacy exam, a representative sample of 300 managers — from all company sectors, including HR — scored an average of only 38%. Get this: Over half didn’t know the difference between “profit” and “cash.” Many didn’t know the difference between an income statement and a balance sheet. Nearly two-thirds thought that discounts offered by sales reps had no effect on gross margin.
Does it matter? When delivering the results of the test, Harvard presented scenarios in which that lack of knowledge could cripple a business. For instance, imagine you’re hiring an inventory manager who doesn’t understand the relationship between inventory on hand and cash flow. Worse, imagine you don’t know what the applicant doesn’t know.

Cash for Employee Clunkers?

The Cash for Clunkers program ended a few weeks ago with nearly 700,000 cars taken off the road, replaced by far more efficient vehicles. While the benefits gained verses the $3 Billion spent by the government is still being debated, I couldn’t help but wonder if Cash for Clunkers might not work in the workplace, too.
Imagine how businesses might respond if the government offered a financial incentive to replace under-performing employees with more talented, efficient ones.

Which employees qualify as Clunkers? I’m referring to the employee whom you hired several years ago – the high potential candidate who arrived to work on day one filled with promise, a positive attitude, lots of motivation, even though he was a little wet behind the ears when it came to experience. After a few months, this employee became a keeper, a top performer, a cherished employee. But just like the car clunker, the shine eventually faded and the ride got rough.
The employee’s performance is inconsistent at best and you constantly seem to be fixing this and repairing that. You’ve found yourself avoiding new projects and postponing strategic initiatives because you were afraid this old clunker couldn’t make the journey. Once considered state of the art, his skill sets have become outdated and the cost of retrofitting him with new skills keeps increasing with little improvement.
You’ve tried different working arrangements, shifting team assignments, and changing managers. You’ve offered promotion, demotion, probation, counseling, and warnings. You’ve invested in trainers, coaches, workshops, seminars, and even a psychologist. With each passing day, his reliability becomes more questionable and his attitude is polluting office morale, releasing productivity-killing emissions into the work environment. But for some crazy reason, you keep him employed, just like “good ole Bessie” in the driveway. You have fond memories of good times together and you treat him like a member of your family.

Then finally the government offers an “Employee Cash for Clunkers” program, ponying up the opportunity and money to exchange tired, burned-out, and attitude-killing workers for a new more efficient, more productive, and more positive employee.
The program has a short window and it’s being offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. Inventories are also limited in the talent pool because many of the most talented people are already employed. Only unemployed and new graduates can be hired. Poaching proven employees from competitors is not covered under the Employee Cash for Clunkers program. There are a few great candidates waiting to be hired but they won’t last long. You’ve got little time to act and only one opportunity to make the right choice. And you certainly want to avoid exchanging one clunker for another regardless of the incentive program.

Which employee would you consider to be your “clunker?” Think – what’s his or her name? If any one of your employees handed in his or her resignation today, which one would offer you all relief and little angst?
What type of employee would you replace him with? What expectations would you have? What skills would he need? What new projects or responsibilities could you give him? What could you do differently if you could replace your Clunker Employee with a Cash Cow?
Now I hate to burst your bubble but it’s unlikely there will ever be an Employee Cash for Clunker program. Nonetheless, the long term rewards for upgrading your talent right now far exceed any incentive government could offer. Many high potentials as well as proven performers are just sitting on the proverbial job parking lot waiting to be picked up. Humbled by the Great Recession, many talented people are offering their services at significantly discounted salaries in exchange for an opportunity. The talent inventories are at their highest levels in years and as the economy reboots, the best deals will disappear as quickly as inventories. Like the stock market, if you’re waiting to time the bottom and the top, you’re likely miss both and regret your decision for years to come.
Start your own Employee Clunker Exchange today. Don’t wait. Identify your clunkers right now. Which employees are costing you more than you gain? If you don’t know, find out. While the right metric will be company, industry, and/or company culture specific, one measure that I found helpful in nearly all situations is Profit per Employee. While all employees do not sell, every employee is responsible to contribute to the bottom line. Develop outcomes and metrics for each employee. Don’t go crazy with this. It’s a simple exercise. Just ask this question: by the end of the next 12 months, what do I expect him or her to accomplish? (If you don’t know, you can’t expect the employee to know either. In which case, you might have a classic, not a clunker, right under your nose and you didn’t even know it.) Then hold every employee accountable for expected outcomes.
Identify your requirements for a replacement. Before you go employee-hunting, determine how much experience, education, and skills you need for an employee to succeed. Do a job analysis. Again – don’t go crazy. For most positions, this shouldn’t take more than a few hours, even less sometimes, to identify the goals, responsibilities, and core competencies.

Get the word out. It’s now time to set the recruitment wheels in motion to recruit candidates who fit your requirements. Upload your opportunity to job boards. Announce your opening on social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook. Place an ad in Craigslist. Many of the strategies I just recommended are free or low-cost. If you’re concerned about being overwhelmed with resumes, use an online applicant processing system (APS) to rapidly screen out unqualified candidates. In this market, now is not the time to compromise. Cast as wide as net as possible. There are a few needles in the current haystack but there is also a lot of hay! An APS will automatically handle the “resu-mess” caused by high unemployment and online job boards and allow you to focus your time and attention on only qualified candidates. Spend some time on LinkedIn, posting the job to groups and asking for referrals.
Time is running out. The talent market is as good as it will get for years to come. Talent inventories won’t last forever. Act now. Exchange your clunkers today.

Employers Expected to Face Additional Pressure From Department of Labor

It seems like everywhere you look there is some mention of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) cracking down in one way or another on businesses. Statistics indicate that there is much increased activity in DOL audits over the last few years, which should come as no surprise. In the DOL 2011 Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2006 - 2011 the department listed four major goals, which are:

*A Prepared Workforce

*A Competitive Workforce

*Safe and Secure Workplaces

*Strengthened Economic Protections

According to the Strategic Plan, the third goal, Safe and Secure Workplaces "focuses on ensuring that workplaces are safe, healthful, and fair; providing workers with the wages due to them; providing equal opportunity; and protecting veterans' employee and reemployment rights." It is this area that prompts the majority of DOL audits of employers.
The newly appointed Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, issued a statement on March 24, 2009 that the DOL is renewing its efforts to enforce labor laws across the country. With the addition of 250 field investigators provided to the DOL under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, businesses can be assured of increased audits.
In is important to understand that the DOL is quite a large organization with far reaching regulatory authority. The DOL has 27 divisions that each has their own function. A few of the divisions that are most familiar to private employees are:
Employment Standards Administration (ESA), which includes: *Wage & Hour Division (WHD) *Employee & Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) *Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA)
In 2008 the WHD recovered more than $185 million in back wages for 228,000 employees. In addition, the agency assessed $9.9 million in civil monetary penalties and concluded 28,242 compliance actions. Including the 2008 figures, the 8 year cumulative total of back wages collected by the agency was $1.4 billion dollars.

Audits are generally triggered either when a current or former employee files a complaint with the DOL or when the DOL targets a specific industry for investigation. It is a common practice of the DOL to target a variety of low-wage industries including day care, agriculture, janitorial services, the garment industry, healthcare, the hotel and motel industries, restaurants, and temporary help. These industries generally have vulnerable and often immigrant workforces, and a history of chronic violations.
Keeping in mind the many arms of the DOL and its numerous divisions, there are many areas that may be audited and some of the main areas of employee complaints (that result in an audit) are listed below:
*Misclassifying employees as exempt (Exempt vs. Non-Exempt status)

*Independent Contractor Status

*Minimum Wage Violations

*Child Labor Violations

*Overtime Issues

*Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Violations

*Improper deduction(s) from wages

*Other Wage Issues such as: Bonus, Incentive, On-Call, Paid Time Off issues

*Timely remittance of retirement plan deferrals withheld through payroll deduction

*Fair Pay Issues

In addition, many states have a state agency equivalent to the DOL. For example, in California there is the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, which can also audit CA employers for the same items as the DOL. It is imperative to know your specific state's requirements in addition to federal regulations. In California, employers should also ensure they are complying with meal and rest break requirements, properly recording meal breaks and the employees' time worked, properly paying overtime, and reimbursing employees for all business related expenses.
Liability for violation of the wage and hour laws does not require evidence of bad intent or unlawful motive by an employer. The performance of the employee is also rarely an issue, making the employer's exposure fairly straightforward in most cases.

If the DOL audits your company, a representative will visit your facility to conduct interviews, make sure the required posters are hung, and possibly examine the time clocks to determine whether your company is in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act. DOL will then review up to 3 years' worth of your wage-and-hour records and investigate your wage-and-hour practices to determine whether you have paid your employees the proper amount of overtime. This will include a review of your pay records, so you must make sure the records are accurate and organized.
Employers need to be proactive about complying with these complex wage and hour laws. If cost is a concern, complete an in-house audit and then have an attorney double check the policies and practices. It will cost a lot more to contact an attorney after the DOL or state agency is in your workplace or the lawsuit has already been filed.

Employee Performance: Don't Forget to Measure, Measure, Measure

Employee performance seems to be one of those "assumed things". We assume that if the work is getting done satisfactorily that an employee is performing well. But how well is the employee really performing, and even more importantly, is this employee really performing up to the full potential of the job?

How does one measure the value a team member is adding or destroying? It is sometimes quite easy and at the same time very difficult to measure. In sales-driven situations, employee performance is quite easy to observe and measure. In Customer Service situations, the evidence often lies hidden in dissatisfied Customers that leave silently and never return.

As one can imagine, data can be difficult to come by, but it is often available if one asks the right questions. Sales teams often have the best data sets for obvious reasons. Sales people are the "tip of the spear" and can cost a lot due to their compensation structure. Plus... Many sales organizations motivate performance through variable compensation. Therefore, the data is usually somewhere.

Other positions can pose challenges to measuring employee value added, however if the position was important enough to create in the first place, you will be able to find the value it adds to your organization. Regardless of how easy or how difficult it is to measure an employee's performance, it is absolutely critical that a manager be able to quantify and verify the value an employee brings to the organization.

The sad truth is that companies and managers often think they know who their high performers are, but fail to adequately measure what their performance really is. Instead they rely on anecdotal evidence, organizational politics, and biased perceptions to judge performance.

Key employee performance point - Always know the value your employee team members are adding. Regardless of the position, or how difficult it might seem to measure and analyze results, this must be done. No exceptions. Period.

Create score cards in order to track the value added in order to identify trends and problems before they become big issues. Employee score cards should reflect the 3-5 key accountabilities necessary to do the job well. A good way to identify key accountabilities is to Benchmark the Job. If you'd like, feel free to contact me and I'd be happy to share some best practices on Job Benchmarking.

Something to consider about employee performance... Over the years, I have discovered some interesting performance trends with regard to high and low sales performers.

Low performers (bottom 20 percent) typically produce between 10 and 50 percent of the high performers (top 20 percent). The typical performance gap between the top and bottom 20 percent is way too high.

Companies hang on to their low performers way too long. It amazes me. Companies often love their low performers way too much. The result is companies leave opportunity on the table - the bottom line is reduced as a result.

Final thoughts: measuring employee performance is far too important to ignore - regardless of how difficult or inconvenient it may seem. I challenge you to take a good look at the way you measure your team members' performance and carefully consider what you need to do to better understand the true value an employee brings to your organization.

What should every company do as part of their Talent Management Strategy?

Benchmark the Job
Match the Talent to the Job
Set Employee Expectations
Hold Employee Team Members Accountable
Continuously Review the Talent by asking, "Would I re-hire this person?"

Now go Maximize Possibility!

E-Verify extended for three years

E-Verify is currently a voluntary program run by the United States government to help certify that employees hired by companies are legally authorized to work in the United States. Formerly known as the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program, the program is operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration.
A system that lets employers check whether newly hired workers are in the country legally has won a three-year extension from Congress. But the debate over the E-Verify program is far from over. In addition to renewing the controversial voluntary program, Congress voted Tuesday to approve $137 million for it over three years as part of a $43 billion spending bill for the Homeland Security Department. The bill now heads to the White House, where President Barack Obama is expected to sign it into law soon. South Carolina is one of 12 states that have passed legislation in recent years requiring employers to use the E-Verify program as a way to combat illegal immigration. "The reauthorization of the E-Verify system is a huge step in assisting employers and the government," said state Sen. Larry Martin, the Pickens Republican who wrote the state's E-Verify law. "It provides the employers the certainty that they are following the law and it provides the government -- state and federal -- a better way to enforce the law." The Obama administration supports E-Verify, but there's deep skepticism in Congress. Lawmakers rejected an attempt by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to make the program permanent. House and Senate negotiators on the final version of the Homeland Security spending bill added language requiring the Government Accountability Office to once again analyze the system and its implementation.

Source: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20091021/NEWS01/91021004/E-Verify-extended-for-three-years

US Department of Labor announces $6 million grant to provide Kentucky workers with health insurance payments

The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a $6 million grant to provide an estimated 1,550 jobless workers in Kentucky with partial premium payments for health insurance coverage.
"The challenges associated with a job search are enough without worrying about a lack of health insurance if you or a family member fall ill or need medical attention," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "This funding will help eligible Kentuckians pay for health insurance while they seek out new careers that pay family-supporting wages and provide benefits for the long term."
The grant, awarded to the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet, Department for Workforce Investment, will be used to make "gap filler" payments for unemployed individuals who are receiving Trade Adjustment Assistance benefits and are eligible for the Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC) program. Under the program, eligible individuals can receive 80 percent of premium costs for qualified health insurance programs. These payments cover the months it may take a worker to complete Internal Revenue Service enrollment, processing and first payments under the HCTC program.
Of the $6 million announced today, $3.6 million will be released initially. Additional funding up to the amount approved will be made available as the commonwealth of Kentucky demonstrates a continued need for assistance.
The amount released today will be funded by resources made available for health coverage National Emergency Grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
National Emergency Grants are part of the secretary of labor's discretionary fund and are awarded based on a state's ability to meet specific guidelines. For more information, visit http://www.doleta.gov/NEG/.